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Undergraduate Education Overview
Courses Offered
for the Upcoming Semester
Current and
Past Semester Courses
Instructors
Undergraduate Certificate
Documentary Studies Courses and
Cross-Listed Courses
Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor
in Documentary Studies and American Studies
Student Opportunities at CDS
Past
Semester Courses
Fall 2006
DOCST 101.01 Traditions in Documentary Studies
Instructor: Rankin
WF 10:05 a.m.–11:20 a.m. (Lyndhurst 007)
Traditions of documentary work seen through an interdisciplinary
perspective, with an emphasis on twentieth-century practice. Introduces
students to a range of documentary idioms and voices, including
the work of photographers, filmmakers, oral historians, folklorists,
musicologists, radio documentarians, and writers. Stresses aesthetic,
scholarly, and ethical considerations involved in representing other
people and cultures.
DOCST
104S.01 Medicine and Documentary Photography
Instructor: Moses
W 3:05 p.m.–5:35 p.m. (Lyndhurst 201)
Seminar focuses on the intersection of documentary photography and
the medical community. Students will complete semester-long documentary
photo project, as well as weekly journals and a five- to ten-page
final essay. Part of each class will be devoted to reviewing students’
work in progress. Consent of instructor required.
DOCST
105S.01 Documentary Experience: A Video Approach
Instructor: Hawkins
W 1:15 p.m.–3:45 p.m.; 6:15 p.m.–8:45 p.m. (Lyndhurst
104)
A documentary approach to the study of local communities through
video production projects assigned by the course instructor. Working
closely with local groups, students will explore issues or topics
of concern to the community. Each student will complete a ten-minute
edited video as a final project. Consent of instructor required.
DOCST
110S.01 Introduction to Oral History
Instructor: Taylor
TTh 1:15 p.m.–2:30 p.m. (Lyndhurst 104)
Introductory oral history fieldwork seminar that examines oral history
theory and methodology, including debates within the discipline.
Students will do background historical reading and look at (and
listen to) oral history interviews. The object is to develop skills
and appreciation for the components and problems of oral history
interviewing as well as different kinds of oral history writing.
By semester’s end, each student will complete a thematic oral
history research project whose product is an oral history audiotape
suitable for archiving.
DOCST
112S.01 Freedom Stories
Instructor: Tyson
T 3:05 p.m.–5:35 p.m. (Lyndhurst 113)
Documentary writing course focusing on race and “storytelling”
in the South. Looking at both fiction and autobiography in addition
to traditional history books students learn to examine the way Southerners
have used historical narratives to find meaning in the past and
possibility in the future. Focus especially on the ways that Southerners
have tried to transform American politics and culture. Students
will read books that are paired with narratives and make narratives
using documentary research, interviews, memories, and the raw stuff
of life to tell a free story and suck out the marrow of our traditions.
Students will obtain a more sophisticated understanding of documents
and narratives, strengthen understanding of twentieth-century racial
politics, sharpen writing skills, and engage in an ongoing community-based
democratic conversation that will provide a foundation for further
developments.
DOCST
114S.01 Large Format Photography
Instructor: Satterwhite
Th 3:05 p.m.–5:35 p.m. (Lyndhurst 201)
Advanced black-and-white photography course exploring unique creative
latitude of large-negative format. Students are supplied with 4-by-5
monorail view cameras; given technical instruction in creative control
of exposure, perspective, and plane of focus; and shown advanced
printing and toning techniques and alternative processes such as
platinum/palladium. Through assigned readings and a survey of artists
who have worked in large format, the class examines the role of
intuition and motivation in creating art. The focus is on achieving
technical proficiency in the first weeks with short assignments,
which include portraiture, landscape, and a documentary study. For
the remainder of the course, each student will develop an independent
project, exploring visual language and drawing connections to the
sciences, environmental philosophy, and literature. Crosslisted:
ARTSVIS 114S. Prerequisite: ARTSVIS 115 or its equivalent. Consent
of instructor required.
DOCST
115.01 Introduction to Photography
Instructor: Hunter
TTh 10:05 a.m.–11:20 a.m. (Lyndhurst 201)
Foundation class in black-and-white photographic process as the
basis for using photography as a visual language. Students learn
to make a printable exposure using black-and-white film, make a
“proper proof,” and make an 8-by-10 enlargement. Assignments
include portraits, alternative techniques, landscape, and a final
portfolio that embodies a single visual idea. Consent of instructor
required.
DOCST
115.02 Introduction to Photography
Instructor: Hunter
TTh 1:15 p.m.–2:30 p.m. (Lyndhurst 201)
Foundation class in black-and-white photographic process as the
basis for using photography as a visual language. Students learn
to make a printable exposure using black-and-white film, make a
“proper proof,” and make an 8-by-10 enlargement. Assignments
include portraits, alternative techniques, landscape, and a final
portfolio that embodies a single visual idea. Consent of instructor
required.
DOCST
117.01 Documentary Photography and the Southern Cultural Landscape
Instructor: Pecchio
MW 1:15 p.m.–2:30 p.m. (Lyndhurst 201)
Emphasis on the tradition and practice of documentary photography
as a way of seeing and interpreting cultural life. Includes the
techniques of black-and-white photography—exposure, development,
and printing—and diverse ways of representing the cultural
landscape of the region through photographic imagery. Also covers
the roles that objectivity, clarity, politics, memory, autobiography,
and local culture play in the making and dissemination of photographs.
DOCST
120S.01 Documentary Research Methods
Instructor: Avots
M 3:05 p.m.–5:35 p.m. (Lyndhurst 001)
A how-to course in doing research for documentaries, including film,
photography, audio, and narrative projects. Students will collaborate
on a class project, using fieldwork in the community, local archives,
and other resources to document a chapter of Durham history. Students
will find and analyze documents, oral histories, photographs, and
artifacts, as well as examine intersections between documentary
and history, analyzing key contributions to the documenting of American
and European history throughout the past century. Discussion topics
include: memory, truth, objectivity, propaganda, narrative, audience,
and authority. As a final project, students have the opportunity
to research a documentary interest of their own. No experience in
film, photography, or audio documentary necessary.
DOCST
135S.01 Introduction to Audio Documentary
Instructor: Biewen
T 3:05 p.m.–5:35 p.m. (Lyndhurst 104)
Recording techniques and audio mixing on digital editing software
for the production of audio (radio) documentaries. Various approaches
to audio documentary work, from the journalistic to the personal;
use of fieldwork to explore cultural differences. Stories told through
audio, using National Public Radio–style form, focusing on
a particular social concern such as war and peace, death and dying,
civil rights.
Listen
to the podcasts from "Introduction to Audio Documentary"
DOCST
144S.01 Literacy Through Photography
Instructors: Ewald and Friesen
Th 3:05 p.m.–5:35 p.m. (Lyndhurst 113)
Children’s self-expression and child development through writing,
photography, and documentary work. Focus on the reading and critical
interpretation of images. The history, philosophy, and methodology
of Literacy Through Photography. Includes internship in elementary-
or middle-school classrooms. Consent of instructor required.
DOCST
148S.01 Planning the Documentary Film: From Concept to Treatment
Instructor: James
T 3:05 p.m.–5:35 p.m. (Lyndhurst 201)
Historical documentary film preparation through narrative, character-driven
stories. Students learn to tell a film story with a beginning, middle,
and conclusion that resolves a conflict(s) that escalates throughout
the film. While the documentary filmmaker cannot invent characters,
plot points, or conflict, she or he must find them in the raw material
of real life. Choices, which are grounded in sound journalistic
principles, must be made concerning style, interpretation, point
of view, and format. Learn how to organize the conceptual process
for historical documentary films, framing a logical sequence of
events; how to determine the focus of a story; how to select characters
and storytellers; how to work with historians; and how to structure
a documentary for dramatic effect. Just as important, learn how
to get others (as in funders) to understand your story. This course
will take class members from concept, through research and casting
to outline, and, finally, to treatment. It will focus on the pre-production
activities and principles that lead to a treatment that is engaging,
journalistically sound, historically accurate, and the foundation
for an efficient and successful shooting schedule.
DOCST
162S.01 Farmworkers in North Carolina: Poverty
Instructor: Thompson
Th 3:05 p.m.–5:35 p.m. (Lyndhurst 104)
Focus is on those who bring food to our tables, particularly those
who labor in the fields of North Carolina and across the Southeast.
Course will cover farm work from the plantation system and slavery
to sharecropping, and to the migrant and seasonal farmworker population
today, as well as documentary work and its contributions to farmworker
advocacy.
DOCST
177S.01 Advanced Photography
Instructor: Harris
M 7:15 p.m.–9:45 p.m. (Smith WRHS 228)
An advanced course for students who have taken Documentary Studies
176S or other photographic field-based courses, or have had substantial
experience in documentary photography. This seminar will focus on
the photographic essay. Students will complete an individual photographic
essay and study important works within the documentary tradition
emphasizing the photographic essay form. A series of twenty edited
and sequenced prints is required at the end of the semester as a
final project. Prerequisite: ARTSVIS 118S, PUBPOL 176S, DOCST 176S,
or consent of instructor.
DOCST
178S.01 Color Photography
Instructor: Harris
M 4:25 p.m.–6:55 p.m. (Smith WRHS 228)
A field-based course about color photography as a documentary tool.
Students will gain knowledge about the aesthetic and technical foundations
of color photography by using recent digital technology. The class
will also conduct an intensive examination of the work of historic
and contemporary color documentary photographers. Utilizing the
new Arts Warehouse multimedia classroom, students will learn advanced
techniques in film scanning, Photoshop 8, and color pigment printing.
Students will be required to complete a semester-long color photographic
project and to produce a series of color pigment prints as a final
project. Consent of instructor required.
DOCST
190S.01 Documentary Fieldwork Practicum: Portraits of Southwest
Central Durham Neighborhoods
Instructors: Lau and Kalow
M 6:15 p.m.–8:45 p.m. (Lyndhurst 113)
This documentary fieldwork course will take students off campus
and into Durham neighborhoods. Students will use the documentary
arts of photography, writing, interviewing, and filmmaking to make
a difference in local communities. Working with the instructors
and leadership of the Southwest Central Durham Quality of Life Project,
students will deepen their fieldwork skills and develop documentary
projects that highlight and explore local history and culture. Readings
and guest speakers will emphasize the interdisciplinary nature of
neighborhood-based documentary fieldwork, drawing on anthropology,
geography, sociology, and folklore.
DOCST
190S.02 Southern Jewish History and Culture
Instructor: Rogoff
MW 2:50 p.m.–4:05 p.m.
This course will examine Southern Jews from the perspective of their
multicultural identity. Beginning with an overview of the American-Jewish
experience, we will explore the role of region and ethnicity in
shaping Southern Jews. The course will explore how Jews acculturated
to the South, the ways they both blended and braided the strands
of their diverse ethnicities. We will study primary material—memoirs,
novels, music, film, poems, newspapers, and public records—as
well as secondary scholarship and historiography. Are Southern Jews
exceptional compared to other American Jews or to other Southerners?
How does region influence identity? How did Jews cope religiously
in such a steadfastly Christian region? When civil war came, what
side did Jews choose? Importantly, where did Southern Jews fit on
the black/white racial divide?
DOCST
190S.03 Re-Imagining the Documentary
Instructor: Michel
W 3:05 p.m.–5:35 p.m. (Lyndhurst 113)
Making and talking about possibilities for the documentary form;
defining what that may mean. Re-conceiving docu-narrative for the
very small screen (video iPods, PDAs, telephones, eyeglasses), installation,
performance, radio, video; for all media known and otherwise rendered
possible. The class will read some of the classics (Through
Navajo Eyes, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Coles, Mead, McLuhan,
others), listen to and see some of the classics (Flaherty, Kamerling,
Isay, Murrow, Deveare Smith, others), and especially make some new
work. Class members will produce individual and collaborative projects.
Listen
and watch student work from Karen Michel's fall 2006 course Re-Imagining
the Documentary
See listing
of required and elective certificate courses
Spring 2006
Fall 2005
Spring 2005
Fall 2004
Spring 2004
Fall
2003
Spring
2003
banner image:
Untitled, from
the series Latino Pastimes—La
Vida y el Fútbol. Photograph by William L. Plaxico, from
the course "Documentary Photography
and the Southern Cultural Landscape," taught by Professor Tom
Rankin.
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